Neverwinter Nights Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Here are a few bits of information from the Official Neverwinter Nights message boards.

Rob Bartel,Co-Lead Designer:

Interview with Greg and Ray: Hi folks, Just an overview and verification of Greg & Ray's interview from the front lines. =o)

It was a great interview with plenty of new content for newcomers and old-timers alike. I recommend giving it (and all of the recent D&D articles on the site) a read.

As for the current status of the project, some early art testing has begun, as well as some focus testing on the conversation editor. That said, we're using an iterative testing model. This means that the testing process will extend over a long duration, with testing occurring first on the individual game components and later on the actual game, itself. It's a very thorough process and it will mean a more bug-free product at the end. However, while testing has begun, don't get your hopes up yet. A lot of development and implementation still needs to occur.

Regarding their discussion of open file formats and the potential support of custom NWN art content (new skins, models, tiles, etc.), the standardized 'Hack Pack' framework they outline is the one that we've decided to work towards. It's fairly graceful in that, by handling each Pack as a discrete and mutually exclusive unit, it should prevent a lot of the corruption and instability that could result from end-user customization. That said, while we're confident in the system as outlined, it still has yet to be implemented. Should significant complications arise, we may be forced to alter or back away from this sort of approach. Hopefully all goes well. For the time being, at least, NWN Hack Packs are slated for inclusion.

About Noober: Hehe, it's funny - when I wrote Noober, I had no idea how notorious he would become. It was just the end of a long day of work and my brain was fried from too many bloody Fed-Ex quests (I have an aversion to this very day). I showed Noober's conversation to James Ohlen, BG's Lead Designer, and he insisted that the programmers implement a new function just so we could get it into the game. The function ended up seeing some more benevolent use as well, thank goodness, but that Noober encounter seems to be the one that's stuck with people. Every time I see a post about him, I shake my head and chuckle.

Are you going to throw rocks at me?

Single player game quality: I can't speak for end-user content, of course (except to say that I think there's a lot of talent out there and a lot of interest in creating single-player content), but we're definitely making sure that the official campaign is fun to play in single-player mode. Despite all of the goodies and features we're adding to the multiplayer framework, the simple fact of the matter is that most cRPG players still prefer playing single-player. For some, it's a matter of taste, for others a matter of necessity. Whatever the case, the single-player market is important to us (after all, that's where we've built up a lot of loyalty with the BG series). In short, when you buy a copy of Neverwinter, we want you to feel that you've gotten your money's worth, even if you never played online, used the toolset, or had a DM guide you through your adventures.

Using a Neverwinter Nights logo: Not a problem, as long as you do 2 things:

1) Give credit where credit is due (BioWare as the game's developer, Black isle Studios as the game's publisher, and Wizards of the Coast as owners of the D&D license).

2) Provide links back to the official site (www.neverwinternights.com). The best way to do this is to have the actual image be the link. Links to BioWare, Black Isle, and WotC never hurt either. =)

We love to see all of the fansites that are emerging out of the community, especially ones dedicated to creating new Neverwinter Nights content. Post a URL when you have the page ready!

Cord Grimwinder-8d:

On monster AI and boundaries: the orcs will cross the area boundary too and keep right on chasing the party ;-). Unless of course the DM has set them up to remain in their own little area, in which case they can be made to wait where they lost the trail, or after a set time wander back home, or any of ten zillion other possibilities depending on what the module maker designed ;-).

Flying, swimming, climbing, etc: The present NWN engine is fully capable of supporting all of those things (flying, swimming, climbing, riding, etc). The reasons those features aren't going to be included initially are primarily; the extra animation work that would be involved (any of those mentioned *could* easily double that work which would add months to the dev cycle) and pathfinding (both the mentioned increase in the complexity which would impact performance and the fact that it would make it more difficult for the average DM to control access to areas in their modules).

Vault characters: Quote(Trent Oster, NWN Producer): When you set up a NWN server with the server character option, the player has to create a character on your server. In essence you have a miniature character vault on your server (for sake of clarity let's call it a character chest)(I know it is cheezy, but hey, what else could you call it?). Each player has a password for your character chest which he/she must enter to access his/her character. When you set up the Character chest you can specify the number of characters allowed per CD key. :End Quote

1st person perspective: Covered before? ;-) 6,492 times and counting (j/k). Here's an old post from BioWare on the subject, it covers the decision making process pretty well on this matter-

Quote(Rob Bartel, NWN Co-Lead Designer): A first-person perspective alters a lot of things on the technical side. For starters, we don't have any sky, so there would just be big pall of darkness hanging above you. Secondly, by anchoring the pitch of the camera, we have better control over the number of polys onscreen at any given time (looking off at a horizon can range anywhere between 1 poly and oodles). This allows us to have higher-poly terrain, buildings, and creatures, and also allows us to pack more creatures into a given scene. It is also part of what makes our Solstice toolset possible - anyone who's made a Quake or Unreal map knows that you have to spend a lot of time tweaking sightlines and things like that to minimize the danger of poly-lag (I've never made a Quake or Unreal map but I know that anyways, somehow...). Lastly, by limiting the zoom function to within certain parameters, we can guarantee that our textures always look sharp and clear, rather than the blurring and pixelation that is inherent in any first-person perspective. Then there's the whole question of perspective-based interface changes, as well, which is another ball of wax entirely...

So, no, you probably won't be seeing a first-person perspective in NWN, though the editor might include a map viewer that allows you to swoop the camera around however you wish. That's probably the closest you'll get. :End Quote

In addition they felt the 3/4 down view was better suited (in their opinion mind you) for multi player CRPG play than the 1st person view.